


Procrastination

by kuchi



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, Hotels, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 02:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20807066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuchi/pseuds/kuchi
Summary: Lardo has shared beds with all types before, hockey jocks and artists and many things between, but both those groups have the common decency to be emotionally constipated in their own ways (she would know, she’s two for one). Ford is atheatre majorwho’s Lardo’smenteeand, in these tumultuous times, she’s a comforting distraction in many other ways.





	Procrastination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenbucket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/gifts).

"I SAID, QUIET DOWN!"

Ford stabs the screen of her phone to receive the call just as the bus gives another lurch. Lardo grabs the head of the seat in front of her for balance. "Hello?" Ford says into her phone, and Lardo's pretty impressed by the smooth segue from one Manager Voice to another. She makes a mental note to tell Shitty about it the next time they're deep enough into a session of idle midnight conversation that it won't seem weird.

Lardo has to pause all thoughts of her mentee for a moment when she realises that the next time she even sees Shitty might actually be when they're living together – but that's still weeks away, and there are important things to do before that, and a game to not miss, so she focuses on that. And on Ford. Currently sitting next to Lardo and talking the ear off who she assumes must be the hotel receptionist. She runs through room bookings and check-in times with an efficiency that's frankly hot, especially considering the rain drumming onto the roof of the bus and the ever-present clamour that is hockey players in a confined space.

Lardo wants to be able to say she enjoys relaying the fruits of her training to Shitty, but that wouldn't be giving him enough credit. It's more that they both have an unspoken understanding: that he's playing the semi-willing receptacle of her ramblings about the ridiculous crush she might be developing on her rookie. Whatever. Shitty gets her.

Ford hangs up.

"Something wrong?" Lardo asks with her chin in her hand and her arm against the window ledge.

"Huh? Oh, no. Just confirming the rooms. We might be squeezed a little tighter than normal, if the boys are okay with that." She smiles pleasantly, waiting for Lardo to respond.

"It's _Samwell_," Lardo says, bringing her knees up to make a cushion for her phone. She types out a hasty announcement in the team chat – something Ford is still in the process of deciphering, given the sheer lack of common English terms found within it – and leans back against the headrest. Her head jerks off it almost at once as the bus gives another heave. The approaching storm is the reason they're scrambling for hotels at the last moment in the first place; Lardo thinks said storm might be early.

When they're finally squeezed into the lobby of West Virginia Ocean View Hotel, the sea-green carpet becomes almost invisible. The situation is only as dire it can be in a tiny, dinky reception suddenly packed with twenty jacked hockey players. She leaves Ransom and Holster in charge of explaining to the others how they're going to be three in a room, and sorts out the equipment stored in the back of the bus. It could be argued that this kind of mundane task was exactly what eager rookies were for, but Lardo doesn't mind at all. Ford looks totally in her element nodding along to the receptionist's instructions, and besides, she wants the alone time. She wants time to think.

Possibly _about_ Ford.

There's nothing so comforting like a frivolous distraction when you have a thousand other things to be doing. Between deadlines and art blocks, and the foreboding idea of _future_ that comes with graduation looming, it's either this or resign herself to becoming a full-time Anguished Art Hipster, which might have been a little appealing in her freshman year, but no. She'll take the 24/7 existential angst without the lifestyle, thank you. So instead she focuses on the way her manager-in-training leans up to the front desk in her stupidly cute yellow Chelsea boots and talks to the overwhelmed woman behind it. Ford speaks with such direction that Lardo can see the woman's expression change, until it almost seems natural her workplace should be packed to the brim with strapping, confused young men.

And, at the risk of sounding like a hack, Lardo spares only point two seconds for her eyes to draw the smooth pencil line of Ford's gait against that desk. Artists notice things.

Ford is cool, too, of course. That's the root of the whole thing. Unlike Lardo, she can be loud without getting distracted, and quiet without being withdrawn. Granted, she doesn't know that much about her yet, but her skill at weaving her attention between different jobs and clubs and bookings and itineraries is enviable.

Lardo still prides herself on her own variety of interest, but interest is only the first step, and falling into roles isn't the same as seeking them out. All this means Ford might one day shape up to be a better manager than her, despite the distinct lack of bro in her aura. Not as disconcerting a thought as it might have been a few weeks ago.

What is decidedly not cool, however, is when Ford walks up to her and holds up a scratched-up key card in her hand. Lardo snaps back to Earth, almost stumbling against the crummy sofa she was leaning on.

Ford is saying, "We have to share a budget double room." She waits expectantly for Lardo's reply, her face slightly apologetic. "That's fine, right?"

Why wouldn't it be fine? "Swawesome," Lardo hears herself say on autopilot, her hand out automatically for the card. It's another few moments before she remembers to drop it and tuck the thing into her back pocket.

Ford smiles wide, shaking out her umbrella and waving Lardo off to find her way to the lobby bathroom.

A double. As in, one bed. In a budget room. As in one, probably tiny bed, in a probably tiny room. This will be interesting.

Lardo has shared beds with all types before, hockey jocks and artists and many things between, but both those groups have the common decency to be emotionally constipated in their own ways (she would know, she's two for one). Ford is a _theatre _major who's Lardo's _mentee _and, in these tumultuous times, she's a comforting distraction in many other ways. Lardo pushes down the nervous twinge in her stomach, trying to figure out if she's looking forward to it, or whether it might be a little too close for comfort.

Hopefully, Ford won't ask questions.

The game ends up being worse than Clarkson's weather. The tired voices huddled around the tables of the dimly lit West Virginia Ocean View Restaurant are a testament to that. The restaurant is closed, but so are most others in the area, and they're only relying on the bravest of takeout joints at this point in the night. And not even the nicest things on those menus, considering the diet the players are all on.

All in all, not the best evening. Lardo is about to give up and go to bed when Ford, who she hasn't seen since before the game, shuffles to her table. "Hey, Lardo," she says, almost nervously, "Wanna get, um–" she shifts her eyes surreptitiously towards the tables, "food that actually feels like we dragged our asses all the way for a special occasion?"

"Dude, please." Lardo stands up and drops the rest of her brown rice burrito on Bitty's plate next to her. She catches him blinking owlishly down in confusion as Ford's (still nervous) laughter whisks her out of the restaurant. Lardo can't help but grin as they tiptoe across the lobby and into the elevator. There's an understanding between them when she catches Ford's eye through the mirror of the elevator. An escape.

They end up getting pizza. It's Ford's favourite food, as she informs Lardo while ringing up the nearest pizza place in the dwindling list of delivery services that Lardo brings up on her phone. Lardo would do this part online too normally, but it's nice to just let Ford do her thing.

She also (chivalrously) lets Ford have the first shower. It turns out that that means she gets nothing better than lukewarm water when it's her turn. Still, almost without thinking about it, she makes sure that she takes almost as long as Ford does in the shower. Not longer – but not as short as her normal showers, either.

When she comes out, the pizza has arrived. The smell of it entirely envelops the air of the tiny room. Ford is sitting on the stained couch in a stripey pyjama set, the burnt orange lines drawn so bold that it would make any expressionist squirm, but Lardo likes it. That's Ford's favourite colour, judging by her outfits.

"Food's here," Ford says cheerily, though it's obviously right there. "I think they forgot my olives." She wrinkles her nose.

Lardo takes the seat opposite. Something about Ford is still a little jumpy, like she's on a self-imposed work shift in her pajamas at 12AM. Lardo just wants to shake her a little bit and be like, _I'm not training you, this is a sleepover_, but that would require her to be touching Ford's bare shoulders and she doesn't know if she should be doing that, in a hotel room.

She glances towards the bed.

Ford hands her a cardboard box with two different halves of pizza, vegetable supreme and Ford's choice of pepperoni.

"Thanks, bro," she says.

They talk about the game as they methodically eat their way through the large pizzas. Ford mourns her inability to catch up with hockey lingo again, and Lardo tells her stories about the team from previous years to distract her. Eventually, Ford takes a big bite of the piece in her hand and says almost before she finishes chewing, "So, how did you end up manager?" She watches Lardo intently for a few moments, before picking a slice of pepper off her shorts belatedly, looking somewhat embarrassed.

Lardo shrugs through salty pepperoni. This is the kind of rote question that would spark something heavy and tired in her chest normally, but Ford looks genuinely interested. "Pretty much through being friends with Shitty," she says knowing she must have heard about him, likely through Lardo herself, by now.

"And you're like, the best manager ever, according to most of them. Kind of terrifying to live up to, but, man, I wish I could be as cool as you," Ford says with a sigh.

"What?" Lardo asks through a mouthful. She's a little taken aback, not at the compliment, necessarily, but at the source, and maybe the wistfulness in Ford's tone.

Ford nods along, a smile playing the corner of her lips. "I mean, just thinking about the kinda work you must do as an artist, and then you still have the time to manage the whole Samwell hockey team and get them up to scratch, not the – well, most organised bunch of players, as I've heard."

Huh. Lardo thought that after _cool _she might have said something about the beer pong (she wouldn't have minded) but she doesn't know what to say to this. She shrugs coolly, a little too late; Ford has been watching her in the seconds between already. After a strangely _not _unnerving moment, Lardo drops her shoulders, letting her puzzlement show. "That's just, uh, two things."

Ford's eyes are wide. "Well, you _create._ I don't know much about art but I'm aware of the sheer amount of time it takes to just produce stuff. I knit sometimes, so I know."

Lardo smiles despite herself. Of course Ford _knits sometimes_. Because managing productions and hockey on top of her actual classes isn't enough. "Well," she says, picking up her next slice, "as much I love it, I do not wanna be hanging out with art kids all the time. Nobody needs that kind of drama. Being in the Haus helps me keep perspective."

Ford puffs her cheeks and lets out a long breath, nodding repeatedly; Lardo wonders if she's even aware of the movement. "You don't have to tell me. There's no drama like... well, drama," she finishes with a laugh. She smiles brightly. "It's nice talking to someone who gets it." And then she immediately launches into a long and admittedly stunning explanation of the intricate mating rituals of her fellow theatre students, and Lardo almost heaves a physical sigh of relief that she didn't have to think of a reply to what just came before.

"Oh," Lardo says after they've laughed over the soap opera that is theatre students, looking for a distraction and ending up with the Smart TV remote. It's surprising a place like this even has one, though it kinda makes sense that it's probably the only thing that this room is holding onto its 3-star rating by. "What kind of stuff do you like to watch?"

It turns out Ford likes movie musicals, but mercifully they don't find any on the hotel's Netflix knock-off, and instead they end up talking over a rerun of some ten-year-old sitcom that neither of manage not to cringe at. Ford asks her more questions like she's trying to fill a quota, but Lardo actually finds herself wanting to ask things in return, so it's not so bad. By the time Lardo realises that they've long finished their food, they've covered everything from the game tonight again to Ford's first few weeks at Samwell and Ford's favourite food place on campus and how Ford used to think that hockey players could only eat soft foods during the season…

Lardo is happy to listen, and Ford is immensely happy with Lardo's simple answers to her questions, smiling like she won some kind of secret knowledge in a way that makes Lardo's stomach twist and feel like she said more than two hurried sentences.

When they've suffered through as many episodes as they can manage, Lardo raises an eyebrow, the question blurting out despite herself. "So, knitting?"

Ford looks embarrassed, her mouth turning in a nervous smile. It's a new expression, one Lardo hasn't memorised in lazy glimpses in their team sessions. She's not embarrassed about the _fact_. It's something else. Ford stands and stretches. "I grew up with two brothers. Football jocks. Have to counter the excessive youthful masculinity somehow."

Lardo looks at her for the slowest beat until they both burst out laughing. Amazingly, Ford actually brings up her phone and shows Lardo progress pictures of a few creations. A hat, and two headbands that she recognises to be similar to the ones Ford wears regularly. In return, Ford gives her rapt attention to Lardo's artsy Instagram. Lardo leaps up and puts away the pizza boxes. Then she scrubs the grease between her fingers with a grainy napkin, and when she's done doing that, she looks up to see Ford still peering entranced into Lardo's phone. Lardo looks away, her cheeks warm.

She drops onto what she guesses is her side of the bed, considering Ford is now sitting cross-legged on the other side. When prompted by Ford's awed, awkward descriptions of what's on the screen, she guesses the image and gives short explanations – when did she make that, what was the project, what did it mean?

It's probably only minutes, but Lardo doesn't know how much time passes like that. She stares at the ceiling. Ford, sitting next to her, a still unfamiliar presence in an unfamiliar bedroom, feels miles away from the hockey game, from Samwell, from her deadlines. Eventually, she feels her eyelids droop – they did start driving this morning when they should have been in dead in bed. Ford carefully sets down Lardo's phone next to her. Lardo turns on her side under the blanket to tap out a message to the group about when they need to be up by tomorrow while Ford pads across the gross carpet and switches off the light. The whole thing plays out like a routine, automatic.

Ford picks up the subject of her half-done mess of a finals project again, twisting underneath the duvet next to Lardo.

It's too late at night, and way too early in their friendship, if that's what this is now, to explain the history of objecthood in installation art to a pretty girl. "We should sleep," Lardo whispers. "We need to be on the road by 8."

"Right, boss," Ford whispers back, and doesn't manage to hold in a giggle. "Goodnight."

Lardo smiles, eyes closed. "Night," she says.

She feels a ton..._safer_ than she did back in the lobby in the afternoon. This isn't awkward, or even that weird. Ford is like, a person. Not just her rookie manager and the unattainable object of her procrastination.

A person that might really _get_ her, and the precipice of that thought is so exciting that she doesn't even recall her hesitation about the sharing a bed thing. Lardo is out like a light before she can finish the though.

She _does_ recall it the next morning, when she wakes up to Ford's face buried in her shoulder, the slope of her body packed warm against Lardo's back, her hand curled against Lardo's hip. Um.

They don't talk about it.

Ford wakes with a stammered apology and Lardo looks at the carpet and tries not to focus on her sleep-fuzzed voice. She strips away her old shirt and leggings in record time while Ford is still in the bathroom, and she's dressed and downstairs before Ford is out again.

Lardo feels the four hours of sleep hit when faced with the prospect of herding everyone into the bus. Thankfully, it looks like the whole team is eager to put this trip behind them, and they're back on the road on schedule, with significantly less lurching this time. By the time she and Ford properly see each other again they're a mile out of Clarkson. Ford gives her a lopsided smile when Lardo saunters over from the back of the bus and sits down next to her.

"Hi – Morning," Ford says. Her voice is croaky but happy, despite the bags under her eyes.

Lardo groans and shakes her head, watching her face from the corner of her eye, letting the dramatics run just a little longer than reality, enough to make Ford smirk. Ford laughs and hands her her iced coffee, uncapped.

Lardo takes it, steadying Ford's hand with her own in order to do so, her heart skipping even before the caffeine.

This might be the opposite of procrastination.


End file.
